The Dynamic Performance program is designed to increase power to size ratio and muscular endurance, enhance fat loss, while increasing mobility and flexibility. This is done with a mix of strength workouts designed to increase absolute strength and power to develop lean muscle, and high intensity circuits to train the body to be athletic and increase muscular endurance. All of these workouts help to increase the metabolism and shed excess body fat. But it takes both types of workouts to get the maximum benefits. There are some people, mostly women, who believe that doing the strength workouts will make them look like big, bulky bodybuilders. So when it comes time to do strength workouts they stick to the small kettlebells and don't get a whole lot out of the workout. The result of this is that as time goes on they're still working with the 8kgs, haven't developed any appreciable lean muscle mass, and haven't increased their power to size ratio at all. These same people typically believe that if their heart isn't beating at 90% max heart rate for the entire time that they're working out (like when we do the muscular endurance type circuit work), then the workout sucks and it's not really giving them any benefit. More often than not, these same people are also still struggling to lose the last few inches of bodyfat they've been trying to get rid of. So I'd like to clarify a few things....
First, if you want to lose weight, then the first thing that you have to do is get your diet in line with your goals. Your diet is what you do eat, not what you don't eat. What you eat, how much of it, how often, and at what times is going to be key. If you're restricting your calories while eating a diet high in processed, high glycemic carbs and low in fat, then you'll be hungry all the time and your body will more than likely store these extra carbs as fat. If your body doesn't burn it, then it's going to store it. The other thing to understand when restricting calories is that while it's true that if you burn more calories than you take in you will lose bodyfat (assuming your body is burning fat as it's source of fuel), it is also true that your metabolism will adapt to a lower amount of calories if you consistently restrict the amount of calories you take in. You have to find a balance that works and doesn't allow your metabolism to decrease as an adaptation to the lower caloric intake. For example, restricting calories for 3 weeks out of 4, or 5 days a week out of 7, may be enough to keep your metabolism high while running at a caloric deficit. A lot of it is definitely going to be experimentation to find what works and what doesn't. Everybody is different, and the same thing won't work for everybody. It's also important to eat a balance of carbs (mostly plants), fats (mostly unsaturated), and proteins. If you're looking to lose bodyfat, eat 5 or 6 times per day (every 2-3 hours you're awake), never more than 500 calories at a time, and always get fat, protein, and carbs every time you eat.
Second, the amount of calories you actually burn during your workout isn't really significant (unless you're training for several hours). The actual calorie burn during your 25-30 minute high intensity workout is going to be on the order of 400-600 calories depending on how big you are to begin with and how intensely you are working. To put this in perspective, if you went walking for an hour you would burn about 200-300 calories. If you went jogging for an hour you would burn about twice that amount. The major difference is that the workouts at Dynamic are going to increase your metabolism so that your body continues to burn calories at an elevated rate while you're not working out. Jogging, walking, jazzercise, zumba and other types of low intensity aerobic workouts won't. Those types of workouts burn a certain number of calories and then when you're done your body goes right back to burning calories at it's regular rate. Working out with short, high intensity full body movements, with heavy loads, will build lean muscle and increase your post exercise energy consumption effectively raising your metabolism.
It's important to understand that having more muscle increases the amount of calories your body requires to get through a day. Muscle mass increases your basal metabolic rate, aerobic fitness level does not. This is a fact. In order to build muscle mass, you have to do strength training. You have to work with heavy loads. The workouts at Dynamic are designed to build lean muscle mass and increase strength. They are not designed to bulk you up. Bulking up requires working with heavy loads, often to failure, and taking in A LOT of extra calories. Or if you want the bulk without the strength you could do some lame bodybuilding routines utilizing isolation exercises lifting light weights to exhaustion until you get that useless "pump" that will build inflated, non-functional muscles.. Regardless, the workouts I give you are not designed to bulk you up. They are designed to build lean, functional muscle mass with mobility and flexibility. Look around you at Dynamic, the leanest people in the gym also have the most lean muscle and work the strength workouts with heavy loads of 50% or more of their bodyweight. None of them look like bodybuilders, they look like athletes.
Since starting at Dynamic on Day 1, Marc has dropped his bodyfat from over 20% to single digits and has developed a strong, lean, athletic build. He's always pushing it with heavy loads on the "strength and power" days.
The strength workouts we do are a very important part of the program. Do them right, and push yourself with heavier loads and you will get stronger, build lean muscle mass, and increase your metabolism. Then when we do the muscular endurance workouts you will train the body to work at high intensities and gain athleticism. You need to work the entire program to get the max benefits of it.
